Page 118 of A Thief to Die For

Ryland keeps talking, listing all the logical reasons I need to go with him. None of it resonates. I don’t care.

This is what happens when I let people close. They get hurt. Hurt enough to die.

Lucky shows up, limping but otherwise okay. Then Clark arrives on horseback with Fitzgerald, who’s suffered some burns on his arm and face. Ryland’s agitation only grows when they volunteer to accompany me back to Notting.

‘No, she needs to come with me!’ Ryland says. ‘She’s not in any condition to fight if you’re raided on the way back.’

My mind wanders – how am I going to explain Agatha’s death to Dezzy?

Eventually, Levi arrives with a trailer and most of our horses, and the arguing between Samuel and Ryland escalates. Ryland insists they force me to come. Samuel threatens to tie Ryland up.

Ryland holds his stomach and struggles to his feet, then shoves Samuel. He yells, his tone harsher than anything I’ve heard from him before.

Samuel takes it, falling back a step. And when he responds it’s almost soft. ‘You’re really going to boss her around like her father?’

Ryland looks like he’s been struck.

Samuel exhales noisily through his crooked nose. ‘You know this has to be her decision.’ Then he turns to me. ‘So, what’s your choice? Hurry up because the clock is ticking. I need to get Ryland to a doctor.’

I stroke my fingers over Agatha’s tangled hair. It doesn’t even feel like a choice. ‘I’m going home to bury my family.’ She needs to be buried beside our mother.

‘What are you … doing?’ Levi asks as I limp past him.

I untie Duke’s lead from the pommel of Sam’s saddle. ‘If we go by horseback, it’s three days to Kingsland from here. At least five if we take this rotting trailer. I don’t think I have five days.’

Sam lowers the tree branch he was using to dig the wheel out of the mud, then glowers at the dirty bandage on my torso. ‘Then let’s go.’

Hours later, the fatigue and cramping in my gut has me listing in my saddle. To stay awake, I think about Agatha. Her sacrifice. Did she think she owed me? Was this about penance? And how much exactly did she heal me?

I let my guilt overflow as I dwell on all the things I missed – like how I mistook Agatha for Marian. How did I not notice that Agatha was healing me? I took some of her injury first. I know it. You don’t forget the pain of an extra bolt wound ripping open on your stomach. But the world turned hazy after that. I vaguely remember my pain easing up and blaming it on blood loss. The last seconds of a dying man. I’m such an idiot.

Just before dusk, Samuel casts a worried glance at me and says he needs to rest. It’s not until I’m lying down, staring up at the open sky under the same stars as Marian, that I let myself think of her.

Please make it home safe.

My new nightmare is the horrified look she had when she realised her sister was dead.

That and her hollowed-out expression when Samuel and Levi dragged me away. She looked so lost.

I scrub my fist over my forehead. Maybe I should have tried harder to convince her to come with me.

‘Take care of her,’ I called out to Rufus. ‘Guard her with your life.’

I can’t believe I’m trusting a crook to get her home. My father. The only comfort is that she’s not alone with him. Lucky and the others will protect her.

The second day, I slump even more in the saddle, and when I gaze at the stars that night, I have a fever.

The third day is nothing short of torture. But in the heat and sweat, and possibly my swelling brain, my dreams are incredibly lucid and Agatha visits me. Her long hair is down. Combed. Her clothes are clean and free of blood. I don’t understand it, but she smiles as she sits cross-legged beside me.

I talk to her about my guilt over failing her.

She listens, seemingly happy to be with me. At times, she stares up at the clouds or hums a tune. I take advantage of it, telling her how much I wish I’d been able to save her. How awful I feel that I couldn’t. After hours of that, she turns and presses her finger against my lips.

‘Ryland, stop.’ Her dimples flash as she laughs. She changes positions to recline beside me, leaning on her elbows. It’s like she can’t be sad. It’s not a possibility in whatever realm she’s in now. She stays long after I settle, but when she finally leaves, she mutters the words, ‘Don’t waste my gift.’

Gift.

The rest of the night is spent tossing and turning in pain, but I also can’t stop thinking about her parting words. That’s the thing about the connection. When you take on someone’s pain, suffering, sickness, it’s always a choice.